James A. Michener

Novelist

1907-02-03

Quotes by James A. Michener

• I am a humanist because I think humanity can, with constant moral guidance, create reasonably decent societies. I think that young people who want to understand the world can profit from the works of Plato and Socrates, the behaviour of the three Thomases, Aquinas, More and Jefferson — the austere analyses of Immanuel Kant and the political leadership of Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt. [The World Is My Home (1991)]

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• I wondered how a man ever got an English girl into bed. What did they do with her hockey stick?

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• Over a hundred German scientists arrived here [Huntsville] at eleven o'clock on an April morning and by nightfall more than sixty had applied for cards at the free library.

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• Public libraries have been a mainstay of my life. They represent an individual's right to acquire knowledge; they are the sinews that bind civilized societies the world over. Without libraries, I would be a pauper, intellectually and spiritually.

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• I love writing. I love the swirl and swing of words as they tangle with human emotions.

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• We seek God so earnestly, Eliav reflected, not to find Him but to discover ourselves.

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• If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion, and avoid the people, you might better stay home.

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• Over a hundred German scientists arrived here [Huntsville] at eleven o'clock on an April morning and by nightfall more than sixty had applied for cards at the free library.

  Read quote

• I am a humanist because I think humanity can, with constant moral guidance, create reasonably decent societies. I think that young people who want to understand the world can profit from the works of Plato and Socrates, the behaviour of the three Thomases, Aquinas, More and Jefferson — the austere analyses of Immanuel Kant and the political leadership of Abraham Lincoln and Franklin Roosevelt. [The World Is My Home (1991)]

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• Public libraries have been a mainstay of my life. They represent an individual's right to acquire knowledge; they are the sinews that bind civilized societies the world over. Without libraries, I would be a pauper, intellectually and spiritually.

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• If you reject the food, ignore the customs, fear the religion, and avoid the people, you might better stay home.

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• I love writing. I love the swirl and swing of words as they tangle with human emotions.

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• We seek God so earnestly, Eliav reflected, not to find Him but to discover ourselves.

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• I wondered how a man ever got an English girl into bed. What did they do with her hockey stick?

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• An age is called Dark not because the light fails to shine, but because people refuse to see it.

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• I was a Navy officer writing about Navy problems and I simply stole this lovely Army nurse and popped her into a Navy uniform, where she has done very well for herself.

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• The permanent temptation of life is to confuse dreams with reality. The permanent defeat of life comes when dreams are surrendered to reality.

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• There are no insoluble problems. Only time-consuming ones.

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• Character consists of what you do on the third and fourth tries.

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• If you type adeptly with 10 fingers, you're typing faster than your mind is working.

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